


Wrong

by onekisstotakewithme



Series: Orientation (College and Otherwise) [10]
Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Angst, CUverse, Friendship, Gen, Mother Hen Max Klinger, Pre-Canon, Two Years Before Idiotverse, bad things happen, idiotverse, implied trauma, queer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-11-13 01:45:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18022469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onekisstotakewithme/pseuds/onekisstotakewithme
Summary: He’s not big on gut instinct, but it doesn’t take a genius to know that something is very wrong with HawkeyeTwo years before Hawkeye meets BJ Hunnicutt, Klinger shows up at Hawkeye's dorm at three in the morning.





	Wrong

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flootzavut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flootzavut/gifts).



Maxwell Q Klinger is not a big believer in ESP, or intuition, or even just plain old gut instinct.

That doesn’t explain what the hell he’s doing standing outside Hawkeye’s door at three in the morning.

He’s not big on gut instinct, but it doesn’t take a genius to know that something is _very_ wrong with Hawkeye, and Max isn’t a psychiatrist or a doctor, he’s just a kid from Toledo, but his best friend is hurting, and Max has to help.

He raises a hand to knock just as the door flies open.

Hawkeye is standing there, wrapped in nothing but his ratty old red robe, dark circles ringing his eyes.

He looks like he hasn’t had a night’s sleep in weeks, looks as if he’s carrying a purse full of rocks on his back, looks _defeated_ in a way that Max hasn’t ever seen before.

“Max?” he asks, and his voice sounds so small, so lost, so… un-Hawkeye, that Max instantly steps towards him, holding out a hand.

“Hi Hawkeye.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Oh, I was around, and I just… I just wanted to… see you.”

“Well,” Hawk gestures at himself, letting his robe gape open to reveal an ugly bruise on his chest. “Here you are, seeing me.”

“Can I come in?”

Something resembling a smile passes across Hawk’s face, but there’s a bitter twist to it, almost the way Klinger’s aunts used to look at him in his dresses. “Not tonight dear, I have a headache.”

“Hawkeye,” he says patiently. “I’m not here to fuck.”

Hawk flinches.

“I came to check up on you. I didn’t wake you, did I?”

“No, no… I wasn’t asleep. I was reading my nuddy stotes- my study notes. For chem.” He stumbles over the lie, and then shakes his head. “C’mon in I guess.”

“Hawkeye,” Max says again. “Just tell me to go, and I will. I don’t wanna push in.”

Hawkeye doesn’t meet his eyes. “It’s okay, Max, just come in. I’m giving the whole floor a show.”

“Nothing they haven’t seen before,” Max tries to joke, but Hawk’s expression goes flat, his eyes hardening, and it’s a look Max has never seen before, it’s fucking _terrifying._ “I’m sorry, I… I shouldn’t ‘a said that.”

“S’okay.”

Max doesn’t believe him, not for a second, but still walks in, hearing the door click behind him, but his eyes are focused on what’s in front of him.

The room is absolutely fucking trashed. Like a hurricane came through here, and left behind the debris of Hawkeye Pierce, the room covered with what looks like Hawk’s chemistry notes.

And every single light in the room is burning bright.

“Holy Toledo, Hawk,” he says, turning around. “No wonder ya can’t sleep, the lights in here can probably be seen from space.”

Hawk does a half-shrug. “Been sleepin’ like this for two weeks, doesn’t bother me.”

“You’ve been sleeping with the lights on?”

The hard expression is back. “Nobody can sneak up on you that way. Bad things happen in the dark, Max. If I keep the lights on, then there is no dark. Elementary, my dear Maxwell.”

It’s scary, how unlike Hawk this is, and Max is so out of his element (and Holy fucking Toledo, he should have checked in on Hawkeye sooner). It’s like walking into his wardrobe and finding it empty. He wears the normal Hawkeye like a beloved stole, and _this_ isn’t him.

“Wait a second,” Hawk says, glancing at the clock. “… Did you come over from your place?”

“Nah, I was down in the costume shop, I’ve got this great little red- you really don’t care do you? _Anyway_ , I decided I’d stop in and check up on ya.”

Hawk takes two strides over and grabs Max by the shoulders, and it’s the most animated he’s been in two weeks. “Are you nuts, Klinger?”

His fingers are digging into Klinger’s shoulders so hard it hurts, and there’s a terrible, awful expression on his face that Max doesn’t understand.

“What?”

“It’s three o clock in the morning!”

“Yeah, so what?”

“So what? _So what?_ Do you know how stupid that is, wandering around outside by yourself in the middle of the night? Something coulda happened to you! How stupid does a guy have to be-,”

“Hey, now wait a minute-”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Max!” Hawkeye lets go, and turns away, shaking his head, his voice dropping to almost a whisper. “Jesus, what if something happened to you? I don’t need that kind of guilt on my conscience.”

“What’s the big deal anyway? Nothing did happen, and I’m here, and I’m aces. I’m even better than the Mud Hens.” He’s hoping for some kind of reaction, a Pierce-ism, a joke about how _everything_ is better than the Mud Hens, something to indicate that the best friend he knows and loves is still in there somewhere.

Instead, Hawk turns away, shoulders hunched, flipping through the few chem notes still left on his desk. The joke drops like a stone, but doesn’t even cause a ripple.

And then Hawkeye, who treats his chem notes the way Max treats the costume shop (with a kind of holy reverence, almost), strokes one shaky finger over them, before tearing them in half.

The sound, sudden and unexpected, makes Max nearly jump out of his heels.

“Hawk,” he tries.

Hawkeye tears up what looks like a lab report, the same expressionless look across his face as he does so, but Max knows him well enough to recognize the barely-contained pain underneath. But even as Max is walking over to try and comfort him, the lab report confetti goes in the trash, and Hawk plasters a smile on as he turns back to Max. “Always hated organic chemistry anyway.”

“Hawk…” Max trails off.

The grin slides off Hawkeye’s face. “Max, why are you here?”

“Hawk,” Max says again, reaching out and grabbing Hawk’s hands, wincing at how bony his wrists are.

_Jesus, when was the last time the kid ate?_

“I’m told ya I’m not here for a fuck.”

Hawkeye nods, and he gets a look on his face, like he’s _trapped_ somehow. “Margaret told you, huh?”

“She didn’t tell me anything,” Max says in return. “I mean, c’mon Hawk, I know I’m just a dumb kid off the streets of Toledo, but any idiot could see that something’s wrong. _That’s_ why I’m here.”

“God,” Hawk says, shaking his head, and his voice cracks. “Max, I… I dunno what to say.”

“That’s probably because you haven’t really gotten any sack time for the last two weeks. You’re turning nuttier than I am.”

This coaxes the slightest smile from Hawkeye, a real smile. “All right, you’re the doc, doc. What do you prescribe?”

“Rest.”

Hawk’s face closes down again. “Max, I _can’t_.”

“Do you want me to leave?” Max asks.

And then Hawk is pulling Max into a hug, nestling into his shoulder, giving Max plenty of time to notice all the sharp edges of his body where there used to be a hint of softness, notice again how Hawk’s body is shaking with nerves. “No, I don’t want you to leave. I don’t want to be alone, Max” he says, voice muffled in Max’s shoulder.

“Good, ‘cause I’m staying.”

They stand together, arms wrapped around each other for a few more minutes, and all Max can think about is the first time he’d woken up in Hawkeye Pierce’s bed, worried that he’d fucked everything up, only to find out that it had just made them better friends, and tries not to think of what must’ve happened, but he can’t stop thinking about it.

He has to swallow the lump in his throat, wants to scream and cry and tear apart the person who did this (Max has some inkling, but tearing people apart based on assumption is a bit too Toledo for his style), and he can’t do a fucking thing except stand here and hold his friend tight.

“Go on,” he says when he pulls away at last. “Get ready for bed.”

“And what’ll you do? I don’t have a spare nightgown lying around,” Hawk says. It could almost pass for a joke.

“Well I know _that_ , which is why I brought my pjs.”

Hawkeye snorts, shaking his head as he heads for the bathroom. “You ever a boy scout, Klinger?”

“No way, not for me. What about you?”

“No, but I was always prepared!”

The bathroom door clicks shut, and Max breathes out a sigh of relief. He gathers up the stray bits of lab report and dumps them, feeling the need to wipe his hands on his skirt after, before dumping the rest of the notes on Hawk’s desk.

Hawk’s bed is stripped to the mattress, the bedding nowhere to be seen. All that’s left is a worn-out red blanket and a pillow, and the sight, so stark and terrible, makes Max want to march back out into the night and scream until his voice is gone.

Instead he grabs another blanket from the closet, changes into his pajamas, and sits on the bed. Hawk’s room has always reflected how he’s feeling, and this… is some kind of deep and utter despair that Max can’t begin to grasp.

But he can look after Hawkeye, the way Hawkeye looks after him.

The bathroom door opens, and Hawk walks back in, nervously eyeing the bed.

“Look, Hawk, I can sit in the chair if you want me to,” Max offers. “Whatever you’re cool with, I’m cool with, ok?”

Hawk shakes his head. “No, Max, it’s okay. We can share the bed. Just as long as you don’t mind not wearing white at your wedding.”

The joke, feeble as it is, makes Max laugh, even as he watches Hawk flop into the bed and scoot over, tugging the red blanket over himself.

Max crawls in beside him, and they lie there, facing each other. He leans in, very slowly, giving Hawk plenty of time to back away, and kisses him on the tip of his nose. “There.”

Hawk smiles for a second, then it fades away. “What now?”

“You can sleep now, Hawk,” Max says. “I’ll keep watch.”

Hawkeye gives him a long, searching look, and says softly, “The bad things don’t go away when I sleep, Max. Every time I close my eyes…”

“You need rest, Hawk.”

“Can you move closer?” Hawk asks, his voice almost a whisper. He looks almost… shy, not like the brazen young idiot Klinger met at orientation, and it’s all Max can do not to cry right then.

“Yeah, Hawk, sure I can.”

He snuggles in as close as possible, and manages to hide his surprise when Hawk throws an arm around his waist and tugs him in so that they’re almost nose to nose, lost in a nest of blankets.

“Thanks, Max,” Hawk murmurs, his breath warm on Max’s face. He presses his lips to Max’s forehead, and then pulls back. “You’re my hero.”

“You’re welcome, Hawkeye. I love ya, you know that?”

Hawk smiles. “If I didn’t before, I sure do now.”

Max reaches out to stroke a gentle hand over Hawk’s cheek, feeling the roughness of stubble against his fingers. “Sleep, Hawk. You’re safe.”

Hawkeye nods, and they lie there in silence, the lights still blazing overhead, and Max thinks of all the things he wishes he could say. Hawkeye’s body is tense against his, and he wonders when the last time somebody treated Hawk gently was.

 _I hope someday you find someone who treats you gently,_ Max thinks, fiercely protective and adoring all at once, running a hand over Hawk’s hair.

“I’ve got it, Hawk,” he says. “You can rest now.”

As if this is what Hawk has been needing to hear, he relaxes against Max, nestles in, and closes his eyes, sighing in profound relief.

Maybe Max isn’t a doctor or a psychiatrist, maybe he’s just a scared kid from Toledo, but if he can help his best friend heal, then maybe it’s a start.


End file.
